The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Never seen this before...outside wires routed *inside* tail light bulb

The right taillight on my 58 had a couple wires sticking out the side that I figured were just tapped into the harness behind the socket and the edge of the lens/bezel was a convenient place to route them out.

I opened it up today and discovered this. The wires are routed *inside* the bulb and are connected to the two filaments.

Anyone ever seen that before? I feel like the bulb had to have been made at the factory like that, but maybe someone disassembled it, added jumpers, and put it back together?

I recall seeing trailer adapters built like that. The two wires would go to a trailer connector. Never had one though. I think it might have been something that u-haul dealers might have peddled back in the days of hitches that clamped on bumpers. I do have one of those hitches in my pile of stuff.

[on edit] I'd say that one of these is what you have there.

I worked at a DX service station as a teen (100 years or so ago), and we rented U-Haul stuff. We did carry bulbs like this, and other pieces and parts for making fast and reliable connections to those that had no trailer lights connections installed.
The inventory came from U-Haul.
No idea if this is still a thing, or part of the past.

KC

I am pretty comfortable with electronics/electric wiring. It took me a minute to figure that bulb out. So, the pig tail is not to power the light bulb, it is so you can replace your existing light bulb and have a pig tail to connect and feed you trailer lights. Pretty ingenious.

Of course that means you can't put the taillight lens back on correctly in order for the pigtail to hang out.

Whoever installed it cut the bezel and cracked the lens to feed it through, so both of those need replacing now. At least they didn't dimple the fender.

It is certainly an *interesting* solution, if not a *good* one.

Edit: the other weird thing is that the truck had trailer wiring badly spliced in under the bed too.

Whatever, it will all become correct as I replace the wiring.

Back when there was only one type of tail/stop light bulb to deal with (1157) that fit practically every car on the road, U-Haul sold those bulbs as a quick way to hook up trailer lights on their rental equipment. They also had female bullet connectors with sharp points that could be squeezed over wires with a pair of pliers to tap into a wire harness.
Jerry

Also, back when cars didn't come with turn signals, only one of those wonky bulbs were needed to run both (or only one) trailer tail/brake lights.

I'm 74 and I never seen a bulb like that. But I've also have had no reason to deal with U Haul over the years.

I am with hot rod. I was a uhaul thing. I had some from when my dads friend closed up his uhaul and hitch shop.

I've had a few cars with those bulbs... and I've used U-Haul a lot.